plateau.
Westward from that snow-topped line there is no low land until you reach
the plains of India. For a few minutes we stood spellbound, and then the
clouds shut down again, leaving only a glorious memory to cheer the
descent through a grey, dripping world.

A generation ago Hua-lin-ping was an important frontier post, but to-day
its broad, barrack-lined street is deserted and grass-grown, for the
vanguard of effective Chinese occupation is steadily pushing westward
into the tribes country. We started the next morning under clouds of
more than one sort; rain was falling, the ma-fu, whom I had been dosing
for a day or two, had given out, and had to be left behind as well as
one of the coolies, and the fu t'ou was cross at having to shoulder the
latter's load. Early on this day we again came to the Ta Tu, having
descended five thousand feet from the top of the pass; and for the rest
of this stage and all the next one we followed up the wild valley of
this beautiful river, which may be said to form the real geographical
and ethnographical boundary between China and Tibet. Wherever the valley
opened out a little, there was the invariable garden-like cultivation of
the Chinese; fruit and nut trees abounded, mulberry, peach, apricot, and
walnut, and the fields showed good crops of maize, beans, and
sugar-cane. But up from the narrow fertile strip of river bank towered
on either hand barren mountains, their precipitous granite sides gashed
here and there by deep gorges in and out of which the trail wound with
sharp turns and steep descents. The grey, forbidding mountains, showing
hardly a foothold for man or beast, tree or house, matched the grey,
swirling river, here unnavigable even for rafts. Thrust back by the
land, offered only a watery grave by the river, it seemed no country for
man to seek a home, and yet the scattered Chinese hamlets were gay and
full of life, and the tea-houses at every turn were doing a good
business.

[Illustration: A GROUP OF SZECHUAN FARMHOUSES]

At Leng Chi, where we stopped for breakfast, I fled from the noisy
restaurant to a small temple across the road, its outer court filled
full of coffins, whether occupied or not, I could not say. A nice old
priest promptly found me out, and taking me into an inner room made me
comfortable with cups of tea. The buzz of voices told that a school was
in session near by, and at the request of the teacher, a good-looking
young man, I paid it a visit. S